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I have this :

Depending on your processor, the downloaded file has one of the following names:

  • xxx-macosx-amd64.dmg
  • xxx-macosx-x64.dmg
  • xxx-macosc-x86.dmg

I need to understand those terms once for all please.

Thank you

2 Answers2

8

These are different processor architectures.

  • amd64 are AMD 64bit processors.
  • x64 are Intel 64bit processors.
  • x86 is 32bit Intel processors.
Oded
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  • Perfect ! I need 12min to validate it as the right answer, meanwhile can you please explain how many processor architectures groups there is for Computers ? –  Nov 11 '12 at 19:00
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    @ALJI - How many? As many as people invent. There is no limit to the possible architectures. The above are the most popular options for PCs these days. ARM processors are very much in vogue for mobiles. – Oded Nov 11 '12 at 19:04
  • So there is **Intel** and **AMD** the constructors of processors the most popular for Computers. **ARM** (constructor company) processors are more popular for mobiles, am I right ? –  Nov 11 '12 at 19:07
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    @ALJI - ARM is one of the producers of processors. There are many others. But essentially, yes. Intel, AMD and ARM are all makers of processors, some of their processors are popular on different platforms. – Oded Nov 11 '12 at 19:09
  • how about **x86_64** is it for 32-bits or 64-bits processors ? –  Dec 01 '12 at 15:35
  • @ALJIMohamed - Where did you see that? – Oded Dec 01 '12 at 18:15
  • I wanted to download a **file_x86-64.dmg** –  Dec 01 '12 at 18:17
  • @ALJIMohamed - That's a Mac file. Intel processor (x86), 64bit. – Oded Dec 01 '12 at 18:17
  • but you mentioned above that *x86* is for 32-bits processors ? how that come ? –  Dec 01 '12 at 18:19
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    @ALJIMohamed - You should ask the people who distribute the file. I am talking about conventions - not everyone follows conventions. The world we live in is not black and white, you know? – Oded Dec 01 '12 at 18:19
  • AMD64 vs. x64 are different names for the x86-64 ISA. They don't usually imply AMD vs. Intel. (Maybe only in this MacOS context?) AMD was the original architect of x86-64, and called it AMD64. Intel was still hoping to replace x86 with Itanium, only later making their own IA-32e CPUs compatible with AMD64. So it's common for some software projects to have their x86-64 version called "amd64", because that name existed first before Intel also jumped on the bandwagon. See [The most correct way to refer to 32-bit and 64-bit versions of programs?](https://stackoverflow.com/q/53364320) – Peter Cordes Feb 21 '23 at 21:08
  • In this case, when there's both an amd64 and an x64, yes I'd assume that the amd64 is specifically for AMD CPUs, and the x64 is for everything else (Intel, Via, etc.) IDK if that's a MacOS convention (the question mentions `.dmg` files), but that's very much not true in general. **x64 is widely used in the Windows world to mean x86-64 in general, with no hint of being Intel specific. The same way amd64 is widely used in Linux to mean x86-64, not AMD specific at all.** – Peter Cordes Feb 21 '23 at 21:12
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AMD64 is used mostly by BSD, Linux and Windows internally, whereas x64 is from Microsoft and Oracle. x86_64 is primarily used by Apple, but they are all different name for a 64-bit OS.

So effectively they are one of the main 64-bit instruction set of x86.

They are different from ARM!

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64

werdl
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